The mantra of the Trump campaign isn’t back; it never left.
By Munr Kazmir | Kazmir.org
Jun 8, 2020
President Donald J. Trump participates in a roundtable with industry executives on reopening the America economy Friday, May 29, 2020, in the State Dining Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)
The dire predictions of economists failed to materialize in May: The May jobs report is in and there is good news. “Trump Touts Surprise Job Figures: These Numbers are Incredible,” crows The Hill.
“All of a sudden, people are talking about a ‘V’ shaped recovery again,” and; “May Sees Biggest Jobs Increase Ever of 2.5 Million As Economy Starts to Recover from Coronavirus,” touts CNBC.
“Employment stunningly rose by 2.5 million in May and the jobless rate declined to 13.3%, according to data Friday from the Labor Department that was far better than economists had been expecting and indicated that an economic turnaround could be close at hand.” — CNBC.
Of the 2.5 million jobs added in May: 225,000 were in manufacturing; 464,000 in construction; 1.4 million in food service; 312,000 in healthcare; and 368,000 in retail.
Economists had predicted the U.S. would instead lose 8.5 million more jobs in May, a prediction so wrong there have been actual calls for a little humility on the part of these prognosticators.
And yet, anonymous sources from “inside the Trump administration” have become only the latest to claim that the walls are closing in on Donald Trump. Apparently, “Brutal internal polling” has the Trump campaign clamoring to shift its message to…jobs.
Between the lines, we are told, this demonstrates the desperate end of Trump’s prospects for reelection and a real low point in his presidency.
“Signs Point to a Trump Loss in November,” the New York Times assures its steadfast readers, as if the Times has a Magic Eight Ball in the news room. (And a powerful urge to drive a stake through the heart of Donald Trump, judging by the introductory paragraph comparing Trump to Vlad the Impaler- unfavorably, of course.)
That Trump’s approval ratings remain steady and the exponential growth of campaign donations to Donald Trump and the Republican party during the last quarter, are not mentioned.
Publications like the New York Times and Axios have a vested interest in predicting the demise of the Trump presidency. Such stories have been the bread and butter for many news outlets these last four long years. That our media elites continue to be as wrong as our economists is never mentioned.
These outlets continue to choose to ignore certain developments that run contrary to the express purpose of removing Donald Trump. This practice is eventually going to erode media credibility past the point of no return.
If it hasn’t already.
Under the guise of some noble higher-calling- such as refusing to normalize the Trump presidency with normal, non-activist journalism- Democrats, and their voters, are missing warning signals bigger than the May jobs report.
The fact that Republicans managed to flip California’s 25th in a special election a few weeks ago doesn’t bode well; nor does the recent Republican upset elections in formerly deep-blue Staunton, Virginia, which saw an eye-watering turnout…for Republicans.
Liberal publications touting polls showing Biden trouncing Trump in contest after contest, nationally and state by state- and worse, those trying to reverse-engineer their failed predictions that Hillary Clinton had a 90%-100% chance of beating Donald Trump in 2016 into predictions that were technically correct- are doing Democrats no favors.
These polls, and polling methods, were flawed for certain reasons in 2016which did not exist in the previous presidential election in 2012. The polls are still flawed for the same reasons: They have not been fixed since 2016. And no self-respecting journalist or pollster should be trying to spin 2016’s whopper of a missed call into a win.
Trump’s beat has been jobs from the beginning; it needs to be jobs even more so now. There is a good reason for this: Jobs is something everyone cares about. At least, everyone outside of Twitter and away from social media, out in the real world.
“Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!” is an effective message, not an act of desperation. Politicians- historically, and the world over- have run and won on platforms promising plentiful jobs.
“Law and Order!” is also an effective message and the liberal left is doing Black Lives Matter an injustice by getting behind calls to “defund the police”.
Of course, most of those calling to “defund the police” don’t exactly want to defund the police completely. Rather, they want to reallocate portions of police budgets to other aspects of community service besides law enforcement, like social workers, addiction counselors, and crisis workers.
These non-law enforcement officers of the state would help deal with issues like the lack of adequate mental healthcare in this country, the absence of meaningful community outreach to help those struggling with addiction, homelessness or domestic violence.
“So much of policing right now is generated and directed towards quality-of-life issues, homelessness, drug addiction, domestic violence. What we do need is increased funding for housing, we need increased funding for education, we need increased funding for quality of life of communities who are over-policed and over-surveilled.” — Alicia Garza, Black Lives Matter co-founder. June 7, 2020.
This is all a wonderful idea, of course. And sorely needed. All of the above- social workers, crisis consolers, addiction centers, social services workers, welfare checkers- are sorely lacking in our society. Entirely too much of the burden from this lack currently lands on the shoulders of law enforcement officers, who certainly don’t receive enough training in social work or addiction treatment and are instead charged with keeping the peace.
Unfortunately, no one is going to read all of the above four paragraphs.
“Defund the police!” is as far as most people will get. Anything that takes four paragraphs to explain why it isn’t what it sounds like needs a better name.
People who would be happy to get on board with boosting non-law enforcement civic servants to relive local police departments of some of their most burdensome and frustrating cases- like those resulting from the lack of mental illness, drug addiction, and homelessness resources in America- will run like the wind from a message like “defund the police” while cities are boarded up ghost-towns and buildings burn on the nightly news.
“Defund the police,” looks a little strange next to the headline in the Chicago Sun-Times today: “18 murders in 24 hours: Inside the most violent day in 60 years in Chicago.”
“On Saturday and particularly Sunday, I heard people saying all over, ‘Hey, there’s no police anywhere, police ain’t doing nothing.’ I sat and watched a store looted for over an hour. No police came. I got in my car and drove around to some other places getting looted, didn’t see police anywhere.” — Rev. Michael Pfleger, longtime Chicago peace-worker and crusader against gun violence about the increased violence in Chicago.
“Defund the police!” takes four paragraphs to explain; “Law and Order!” is so pithy there is a television show named after it.
Former Vice President Joe Biden sees the writing on the electoral wall that “defund the police” is a loser at the polls. As of today, a spokesperson from the Biden campaign has issued a statement that the former Vice President does not support defunding the police, but that he does support reformsunder the current rules and existing law enforcement organizations.
Whether or not Biden will manage to maintain his stance after news of his deflection hits social media and the newswire is another matter. Protestors demanding police departments be defunded haven’t been terribly lenient on Democrats who have refused to hear the call.
Democratic voters are also waiting to hear from Joe Biden on what he intends to do about jobs. Admitting to having been distracted by the killing of George Floyd, the Biden campaign keeps dragging its feet on releasing its plan to get America back to work.
(contributing writer, Brooke Bell)